Al-Hakim Mosque

This guide to Al-Hakim Mosque in Cairo opens with a riderless, blood-soaked horse returning to Cairo one February night in 1021, sending search parties into the Mokattam hills after the caliph who built the mosque and rode out that night, never to return. You'll hear about his strange decades on the throne, from banning beer to funding scholarship generously, and about the following that grew up around his disappearance. The twin minarets, later used as a crusader prison and a stable, carry their own centuries of use.